This is one of those cartoons in which the neutral in Raemaekers speaks with peculiar force. Such a picture by a Britisher would reasonably be discounted as unduly prejudiced, for it is none too easy for us in our present stresses to see the other fellow's point of view—in this difficult business of the blockade for an instance. That friendly championing of the rights of neutrals suffering under the outrageous tyranny of the British Navy is a thing to which only the detached humour of a neutral can do justice. He can testify to the way in which the giant strength of that navy, whether in peace or war, has been used in the main not in the giants' tyrannous way; he can make allowance for the exigencies which have caused occasional arbitrariness under the stress of war or even in some untactful moment of peace; he can contrast the two main opposing navy's notions of justice, courtesy, seamanship—which is sportsmanship. He can recall that no single right whether of combatant or neutral, of state or individual, guaranteed by international law, which the Germans have found it convenient or "necessary" to violate has been left unviolated; that there is no single method or practice of war condemned by the common consent of civilization but has been employed by men who even have the candour to declare that they stand above laws and guarantees. And therefore he can make grim, effective fun of the sinister bandit with his foot planted on the shackled prisoner that lies between two murdered victims fatuously taking in vain the name of freedom. JOSEPH THORP. |